Bleeding Out lf-1 Read online

  "I hope Jeannie doesn't find out about this," Nookey gloomily warned his partner.

  "She'll find out when I take her out to dinner on La Freek's Ben Franklin."

  Frank's smile was thin and enigmatic. Noah winked at her and said near her ear, "You're Mona Lisa gone over to the other camp."

  Her smile widened a bit. She and Noah had been friends for a long time. In the early years he'd had a gentle crush on her, part of the allure being the impossibility of attaining her. The affection that had remained between them was built on mutual trust and admiration.

  Reaching for a pitcher, Nancy leaned her considerable breasts between the two detectives. Noah made a pained expression and Frank was suddenly fascinated by a scar on the tabletop.

  "'Nother round?"

  "I gotta get going," Noah said to her chest. Bobby echoed, "Me, too."

  Frank inclined her head toward Ike and Johnnie. "How about another round for the drunks at the end of the table."

  After paying the tab, Frank walked out with Bobby and Noah. The air felt cool and fresh. She said good night to her detectives, offering to drive Noah home. He wasn't much of a drinker but he kept up with everyone on Fridays.

  "I'm fine," he said.

  "Alright. Say hi to Tracey for me, and the kids."

  "Tracey misses you. Says she never sees you any more."

  The grimace that passed for Frank's smile quickly twisted her face.

  "Tell her I miss her too."

  "You going back to the office?"

  Frank leaned against her open door, considering. The beer felt good inside her. She was ready to call it a week.

  "Nope. I think I'll go home."

  "Good girl. You've put in your obligatory twenty, thirty hours of OT. Get some rest."

  "Yessir."

  "Goddamnit, I love it when you get all military on me."

  "I'm going to get military on your ass if you don't get out of here."

  "See? Look! Goosebumps," Noah said pointing to his wrist.

  Frank wagged her head as Noah folded his lanky frame into his old car. They pulled out of the lot and already she missed his camaraderie, feeling the loneliness of the weekend seeping in like the chill around the window frames. As she approached the freeway, Frank thought about going back to the office, but that would only be putting off the inevitable. Instead she cruised slowly home, resigning herself to the company of the radio and the cheery glow of brake lights and turn signals.

  She stopped at the grocery store, buying a pork loin and a good Pinot Noir, then picked up a bouquet of flowers from the hippie girl on the corner.

  "Hi-i," the girl drew out the greeting with a big, dopey smile.

  "Hey," Frank said. "How's it going?"

  "It's so-o slow tonight," the girl said uncomplainingly. "You're only my fourth customer. I was gonna close up but I knew you'd be here."

  "Well, now you can go home, get warm."

  "Yeah," the girl giggled, handing Frank her change. "See you next week."

  Frank rolled away, marveling at the wonder of good drugs. The girl was either always high, or she was an old stoner and had smoked so much for so long she'd become permanently goofy. But rain or shine, dark or day, the girl was on her corner peddling her flowers. It occurred to Frank she didn't even know her name.

  Frank pulled into the dark driveway and the sensor light came on. Inside, a lamp was already lit. Frank didn't notice it anymore unless the bulb blew. In the beginning her heart had lifted when she'd seen the warm light coming from the window, until she realized it was just the damn timer and there was really no one home waiting for her.

  Frank poured a glass of the Pinot, then studded the roast with garlic gloves. She pinched some rosemary from a bush in the backyard and sprinkled it over the meat, along with a generous dusting of salt and pepper. Quartered potatoes got tossed in a bowl with lemon juice, olive oil, and bay leaves, then snuggled around the roast to cook in its drippings.

  Sliding the baking dish into the oven, Frank turned her attention to trimming the flowers, carefully standing them in the same vase she always used. The glass one Mag had always insisted on. She wiped up the kitchen, put the flowers on the big glass table, then realized there was nothing else to do. She changed out of her work clothes and into shorts. The gym distracted her until her watch beeped that the roast was ready. C-SPAN and the newspaper were her dinner companions at the coffee table in the living room. Later, while she did the dishes and finished the wine, she was buzzed enough to hum along softly with Ella Fitzgerald.

  A typical Friday night followed by a typical weekend. Barring a call-out, Saturday morning she'd sleep late—dawn being late for Frank—then work out for a couple of hours. Then she'd return to the office, dropping her dry cleaning off on the way. She'd catch up on paperwork until evening, then stop at the Alibi for a while. It was usually slow on the weekends, but she'd stay for a pint or two and let Nancy flirt with her. Then it was back home to the news, law enforcement journals, and more beer.

  Sundays started the same, only she'd go to the Alibi before the office to watch whatever games were on. Johnnie was always there, and Gough and Ike showed up fairly regularly. Nookey and Diego usually made it to the afternoon game, and sometimes Bobby would stop in. By Sunday evening, Frank would be feeling good that it was all downhill to Monday. There was safety in this numbing ritual and Frank didn't deviate from it. Nor could she possibly know it was all about to change.

  He showed the boy his first Playboy when he was eight. The boy had been nervous, not sure how his father wanted him to react. His father had called him into the office. Patting the ripped loveseat, he made the boy sit next to him. His father opened the magazine on his lap, pointing at women's parts and calling them names the boy had never heard before, not even in science class. The boy had been too nervous and too young to be excited by the pictures. His father touched him, trying to encourage the anticipated response. When it wasn't forthcoming he became agitated, angry. Called the boy a homo.

  He knew what a homo was. A couple of the boys at school called him that. The father continued berating his son as he unzipped his fly, proving what happened to men when they saw naked women. The boy only shrank up tighter. The father's tone was too familiar, and when he asked, "Are you my bitch?" he lost the shred of hope he'd harbored, sinking instead to his knees, bending over like a dog. While he waited helplessly for it to end, he dreamed how someday he'd be a man and he'd be the one in back, grunting and pumping instead of crying on all fours.

  6

  "You know I hate these goddamned machines," Frank said to Noah, indicating the lone computer sitting on a rickety table. The squad had gotten its first computer six months ago, but it still wasn't connected to the other seventeen divisions within the LAPD. Figueroa detectives either had to bribe someone at Parker Center to check information for them or get in their cars and drive downtown to do it themselves.

  "What takes you twenty minutes takes me twenty hours. I need you go to Parker and run Kenneth Hahn through the database. Pull up whatever arrests and major incidents happened there over the last six months."

  "Shit, by the time I do that I could teach you how to do it."

  Frank peered mystified at the keyboard and muttered, "It's good to be king."

  Noah told her as he walked out of the squad room that seeing as they were about to enter the twenty-first century, she might want to try and get a handle on the twentieth.

  Later that day he tossed the report on Frank's desk.

  "How'd you get that already?"

  "Called in a favor. Hey, I got the subpoena signed to pick up Luther Jackson. Johnnie and I are gonna go serve him. Then I'm gonna try and get to the last half of Leslie's game."

  "Who's she playing?"

  "St. Joseph's. Wanna come? They're really good."

  Frank was already reading the list.

  "Next time. Thanks for getting this."

  "Sure. See ya tomorrow."

  Noah paused at the doorwa
y. Frank was engrossed in the printout as he said, "You know, the nine-three would crumble if you ever got a life, Frank."

  She grunted without looking at him. He reminded her, uselessly, not to work too late. Fishing around in the top drawer, she pulled out a green highlighter and started marking all the rapes on the list. Agoura's perp had been into rape. He might have started with them and worked his way up to homicide. Tomorrow she would go to headquarters and review the rape cases one by one, in more detail. There might be a pattern among them that resembled Agoura's.

  When she finished coloring the list, Frank shrugged into her wool blazer and headed for the Alibi. She caught the second half of Monday night football, but later, after she'd only been asleep for two hours, she was called out on a domestic with Gough and Nookey.

  She arrived at the Dalido Arms apartments and Gough told her the story.

  "Twenty-eight-year-old male Hispanic. Girlfriend stabbed him in the heart. Neighbors say they were fighting all night 'bout some other bitch he's bumping. Suspect denied the whole thing. Said she was cutting onions and he'd startled her. She'd turned with the knife in her hand and he'd run into it.

  "Man," Gough said through the exhaustion born of a career in homicide and too little sleep, "if I had a dollar for every time someone ran into a knife in this town, I could have retired ten years ago."

  Nookey shot his partner a look and hissed. They took the woman back to the station and tried working a confession out of her. The two older detectives were masters at coaxing confessions. Frank observed from behind the one-way mirror. She'd learned a lot from them over the years and still took pleasure in watching them work off each other. Seeing them interact she suddenly realized just how much Nookey was going to miss his partner. Frank uncomfortably pushed the feeling aside and concentrated on the detectives' dialogue.

  By the time the rest of the squad rolled in at 6:00 a.m., Nookey had a signed confession and his suspect was sleeping downtown in a jail cell. Gough was typing the report as Frank interrupted him to ask why he'd called her out on that case—he and Nookey could have handled it in their sleep.

  "We were asleep," Nookey said.

  "Yeah. Just thought you'd like to see the masters at work," Gough responded, without looking up.

  As squad supervisors, Frank or Foubarelle were on call for all homicides. If it was an uncomplicated case, like this one, the responding detectives usually handled it on their own. If they were green or new to the squad, Frank insisted on a supe rolling with them. But her squad was all seasoned veterans. Gough and Nookey had needed her tonight like a dog needs fleas. Boy-red had called her out just to tweak her.

  "You did good," she said, and walked away. Gough rolled his eyes and Nookey chuckled. His partner was forever failing to get Frank's goat.

  Briggs was dressed nicely for a morning in court, but Frank recognized the bloodshot eyes and slight tremor as he pulled his papers together.

  On her way to her office she clapped him on the back.

  "Rough night?"

  "Aren't they all?" he asked seriously, and Frank had to agree. She remembered vague, uneasy dreams and was relieved she couldn't remember more.

  After the morning briefing, Frank headed over to Parker Center with the NCIC printouts in her briefcase. The Agoura case was getting as cold as Melissa in her grave. The longer cases sat, the harder they were to solve. But Frank was a master at perseverance, and Agoura was quickly becoming a personal challenge. Frank hadn't actively worked a case in months. She loved pitting herself against the perps, though, and Agoura's was offering a nice edge. Frank was ready for it, wanted it.

  She offered curt hellos to the faces that recognized her and quickly settled herself in front of an empty computer. Even though she knew how to use the basic functions, she hated the machines. She liked the old-fashioned method of digging through files, pulling folders, having pictures and statements and notes spill out with their dusty smells.

  As she was writing down information from the computer screen the pager on her belt went off. The watch sergeant. She called in from an empty desk.

  "I got good news and bad news for ya," he teased.

  "What have you got, Artie?"

  The sergeant happily reported. "Bad news is you got a double at a rock house on 70th and Denker."

  Frank sighed. There weren't supposed to be so many homicides this time of year. The weather was bad, days were shorter, people more mellow. Didn't the perps know that?

  "So what's the good news?"

  "Looks like they already got the shooter."

  "Alright. Thanks."

  Frank hung up, stuffing papers back into the briefcase. She backed out of the computer, figuring Agoura was going to get a little colder.

  Frank got home around eight o'clock, pumped and pressed, slammed a couple of beers, and fell asleep with an FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin on her chest. At some point she woke up enough to turn off the light and stretch deeper under the thin down comforter.

  A while later her own cries jerked her out of sleep. Frank stumbled from the bed, tears blurring her vision. Still not sure where she was, she groped toward the bathroom. She slapped cold water on her face but couldn't look at herself. Clutching a towel, she breathed into it deeply, unable to wash away the dream or the pain it had summoned.

  The water running in the sink didn't drown the shotgun still pounding in her head, and no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes, Frank couldn't stop seeing Mag's bewildered face. She rinsed and rinsed under the running water, sure she was still covered in blood. She fought for reality, forcing herself to acknowledge the blue towels, her pink brush, the words on the tube of toothpaste.

  "Clean teeth...healthy feeling gums...a great taste," Frank whispered. Finally she dared a glance in the mirror, certain there'd be blood all over her. Instead, she saw her own bewildered face. That broke the spell. With a strangled cry, Frank slammed a fist into the mirror. The glass exploded and Frank cursed, slugging with her other fist. Panting like she'd just sprinted a quarter mile, Frank stared at her bloodied knuckles, wincing at the glass splinters stuck under the skin. The pain was clear and clean, and it distracted Frank from her inner anguish. A fat silver shard was imbedded in the back of her gun hand. Frank yanked it loose. Mesmerized, she watched as her blood flowed against the white porcelain. After her heart slowed a little and her breathing evened out, she plucked out the most obvious shards, clamping her teeth down against the pain even as she relished it. Welcomed it.

  "Let's get you a drink," she murmured, wrapping the towel around her hand and talking herself into the kitchen.

  "You're alright," she whispered steadily. "Everything's okay. Everything's alright."

  She was reassuring herself like she'd done as a kid, when her mom was on a manic high and breaking dishes so they could go out and buy a new set, or when she was in bed for the tenth day in a row and Frank had eaten absolutely everything edible in the house. Carefully taking a glass out of the cupboard, she filled it with Scotch. She drained it. Bleeding, still shaking, she poured more.

  The alarm startled Frank out of a deep sleep. She was stunned by the ache in her head. She threw a hand over the buzzer only to feel worse pain. Then she remembered the dream and its terror, smashing her fist in the mirror, and the blood, and trying to wash it away with Scotch as she'd roamed uneasily through the empty house.

  Frank sat up woozily, reaching for the bedside lamp with her left hand. It was stiff and swollen too, but at least it wasn't throbbing like the right. The light stabbed through Frank's eyes and lodged in her brain. When she rolled out of bed her stomach rolled with her. Stepping gingerly into the bathroom, she searched for lurking shards she hadn't mopped up last night. She groped under the sink for a bottle of Pepto Bismol, chugged a quarter of it, and chased it with four aspirin. She dozed under the hot spray of the shower until the pharmaceutical cocktail took effect.

  The fine cut of her suit couldn't mask the slump in Frank's shoulders as she mixed sugar in water over t
he kitchen sink. The drink would simultaneously fight her dehydration and fatigue. Although the coffee trickling through the percolator smelled noxious, the caffeine would help move the fog out of her brain. Frank had been through this before, she knew the drill.

  Thirty minutes later she was at her desk, still exhausted, her hand on fire, but at least the worst of her physical pain had eased. The other, she couldn't do anything about. The phone rang in the squad room and she heard Noah answer it, then a second later he whistled. When he draped his lanky frame around her doorway, she squinted at him through the haze of her hangover.

  "We got a 187 at Carver Junior High. Female Caucasian. Looks like a teenager. Naked and beat to shit."

  Frank was up and swinging into her jacket before Noah had finished talking.

  "Come on," she said to Gough as she breezed by him. He protested he wasn't on the clock yet, and Frank whirled on him with more than fury in her eyes. He grumbled but put down his paper and followed. As they clattered into the garage Frank pulled out her cell phone and dialed Foubarelle's home number, but before it rang, she disconnected and began calling her detectives in instead. The three of them piled into the same car and drove under the low dark clouds that hovered over the city.

  "Maybe we're getting that damn El Nino after all," Gough grunted from the backseat.

  "I could live without it," Noah replied, but Gough, the gardener, insisted the rain would be good.

  "It'll fill up all the reservoirs so we won't have to do water rationing. God, I hate that."

  As usual, Noah drove and Frank turned her attention to the city outside her window. She saw the broken houses, rubble-strewn lots, crippled cars, cryptic banger messages on anything that held still long enough. An old woman slowly pushed a grocery cart piled with cardboard and tattered plastic bags. She looked as gray as the sky, and an image of the light fading from Mag's eyes squeezed into Frank's head. She clenched her jaw tightly and forced her thoughts back to work.